Working hard and being employed may no longer be enough to ward off poverty, according to a study released today by the Sodexho Foundation and Brandeis University's Institute on Assets and Social Policy. The study finds that the U.S. has a large contingency of working poor who do not have sufficient resources to support their families at a minimum economic standard.
The future might be more promising, however. The study shows that new state policies are enabling more low-income households to move from poverty to the middle class by rewarding work effort, enhancing job-related earnings and providing ways to encourage the accumulation of assets such as savings and home ownership.
The study, Innovative State Policies to Reduce Poverty and Expand the Middle Class: Building Asset Security Among Low-Income Households, examines a new domestic policy framework called "asset building." The framework is based on the concept that helping people develop financial assets provides stability and an opportunity to move into the middle class.